Posted By:
BlackSoxFanI want to address something that has come to my attention. I want to post this seperate from the other thread, but will also include it there just to make sure people see it.
A few people have asked me about the start date and why things haven't gone up and why is it taking so long for the red cross to get the money.
These are all valuable points. I understand exactly where all of you are coming from so i want to address them each individually. As always, I'm not a mind reader, and i'm always available to chat and will always do my best to substantiate any question you may have. In the future, if anyone has a comment, please feel free to post or ask. On with the answer.
Right now we have probably recieved around 250-300 cards and items in total, most of which have come from people within this forum. Approximately 40 of them were already graded, the rest were raw. As we all know, like it or not, graded cards sell better. This is in part due to the fact that people know they are unaltered (yes i know what many of you are thinking). In an auction environment, if any person sells an item and the buyer feels the item is not as described ... the customer might want to get a refund and such. Even if you as an individual are selling the item, if you sell a raw card for charity and then donate the money as soon as you receive it... what do you do when the customer picks up the phone a week later and complains? Do you take the item back.... then you have not only left yourself in a difficult position but also could be accused of fraud.
Additionally, I know a good bit about cards, but i'm not an authenticator...i cannot garuntee all of the cards i have gotten in b/c they just fall out of my wheel house. As such, we are fortunate to have a company like SGC stepping up and helping us out here. This will insure the safety of the transaction, increase the sale price. This will allow us to make all sales final.
I don't have an exact count right now b/c we have not had an opprotunity to enter each card into a database. We have all the lists and such. Thanks to a fellow board member (whose name i will use if he allows), we just received a database designed for tracking the status of all the cards and donations and such.
Okay so now you ask... well if 200 to 300 cards are at the graders, why are we not moving forward with the sale of the other items? Well for a coule of reasons. First, many of the donations include cards from the same set .... some of them are raw and some are holdered. As such, we think it would generate the most money if we wait until we have all of those available at one time. Additonally, some people have donated cards from the same set. We have to keep these seperate. For example, if two people each donated half of the T206 set...we couldn't offer it as one lot b/c then we would have no way of truly saying which cards (and thus which donation) generated which portion of the sale price.
Also, at this time, I am currently trying to work with the National Chapter of the red cross to arrange for us to be able to legally avoid using MissionFish. This is ebay's charitable wing that assits people in donating to charity. We have spoken on the phone with people at MissionFish (aka...giving works) and they have advised us in this manner as well. If we were to go through giving works.... $3.00 from EVERY auction lot would be lost. That three dollars would go to MF. They are also an non-profit but they still take money to cover their own costs. Also, the money we donate to them would go into an Escrow account for several weeks. I can explain why if anyone would like to know, but for now let's just leave it at that. So, although there seems to be a big delay in the start of this all, i can promise you that we are all working full time on this. The national chapter of the ARC is still recieving over 200,000 phone calls a day! The people there are working very hard, and their time is valuable. We have to work with them to make this happen and not the other way around.
Also, one of the concerns is that while there is a tremendous amount of support for this cause, it is going to be a very long process for New Orleans to get back up to speed. As such, what happens in 3 months when the donations have slowed, if not stopped! I also hope that with the efforts of SGC and all those involved, people will pay a little more for these cards b/c they know what is happening with the money. Maybe that's idealistic, but that's what i hope.
Lastly i think that people here might say, well if i had known all of this i would have just donated money or you'd still rather. Or better, "I would have just sold the card here on the board like i originally wanted to and the ARC would already have their money" If that is something that you feel strongly about, i am happy to return the cards to you. However, if they have already been sent into SGC, you will have to pay for the grading. I hope that people on eBay having access to these cards will mean that the cards will sell for more than what poeple where asking on here.
I can assure you that you will all have proper documentation and reciepts for tax purposes in time for tax season. In the meantime, i hope this answers a lot of the questions out there. I also hope that people understand, i do not feel that if you havce not submitted to our auction that something is not right. Please understand, giving is what is important here..not how or what you give.
I also urge any of you to call me day or night if you have any questions at alL! Don't wait for them to be answered and don't assume that i know your concerns unless you bring them to me. I will be working on this tomorrow until i leave town for the night. I have a personal matter to attend to. Some of you know what this is and i promise i would not be leaving this matter if it were not for good reason. I will be back on tuesday late morning to continue. In the meantime, i'm busy scanning all of the items we still ahve and preparing them for auction. Aks and i will answer. Call me any time you want. I'm up almost all the time except 4am-7:30am (or 8am sometimes) EST.
Thanks for your time.
Ted
Regards,
Black Sox Fan
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09-18-2005, 10:23 PM
Important Message RE: The Hurricane Auction
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